I must be honest here, I did miss this take on Meg Whitman’s non-support of California public pension reform:
The so-called California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility has suspended its efforts to place two measures on the November ballot to reduce the pension and health benefits for new public employee hires.
Marcia Fritz, president of the Citrus Heights-based group, said she would have needed $2 million to collect the nearly 700,000 valid signatures by the June 14 deadline to get the measures before voters in November.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman, the leading Republican candidate to replace him, earlier this year backed away from supporting the ballot measures.
Political consultants have been quoted in the press as saying Republicans were concerned that an anti-pension measure could mobilize public employee unions and bring more liberal voters to the polls in November, when Whitman hopes to be her party’s nominee for governor.
The foundation’s measure proposed to reduce benefits for state, local, county and regional government workers hired after July 1, 2011. Two versions of the same proposal were filed – one required a simple majority vote of the people to approve future pension enhancements and the other required a two thirds vote.
Under one of the stalled proposals, the retirement age would have changed to no earlier than 62 years of age and limits would have been placed on future retirees’ compensation and health care costs.
Fritz said her group will soon return with a tougher measure that replaces defined benefit pensions for new hires with a 401(k)-type defined contribution plan.
“If legislators do nothing to reduce pension costs next year, we will try again to qualify a pension reform initiative … one that provides for a defined contribution plan, not a defined benefit plan,” Fritz said in a Feb. 24 press release.
Still in circulation is another pension proposal written by Southern California resident John Romano. It would limit pension payments to $100,000 a year upon retirement. Retirees could receive cost-of-living increases tied to the Consumer Price Index, but pensions would be capped at $162,500 a year.
If the above is actually the attitude of the Whitman campaign, look for nothing big to change with a Whitman win in November. Disappointing.
Learn about, and sign the petition for, my initiative here. The article above was originally posted at Calcsea.org.
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
